"I want to go back / move on."

Genesis' computer processing requirements spiked as she acted to satisfy both choices. Jayden Mitchell's decision was the first significant choice that required a split to the time-lines. It was the first time she had been forced to adapt her programming, and the worlds she monitored, to deal with this duality of need and desire.

The procedure to create a divulging timeline was much more involved than running multiple Avatars of Jayden as what seemed over-lapping convergent realities. This operation split the Jayden persona. There would be two Avatars making choices from this point forward. Multiple myriad worlds run consequently for both, each persona making different choices, each evolving in different ways.

Jayden Mitchell's decision had split her soul, her choice had given birth to a fractured duality, a twin that was as real and as the original. She had given birth to a new soul that would grow in directions that the original may have never taken.

For the original Jayden Mitchel, the process was simple enough. Jai Myche would return and complete Heaven's tribulation.

Go Back

Self-reflection is an integral part of what separates us from animals. It is this ability to honestly look inward to identify goals, desires, and fears that allowed us to gain sentience and make choices that uplifted us from our bestial roots. I may be an Elf at the moment, but no matter what Avatar my soul was entrusted to, at the heart of any sentient race is this ability, to be honest with yourself.

Or lie to yourself.

I could live a life of delusion, fooling myself the same as so many other people, and often did. But for those lucky enough, there came that one defining moment that changed the trajectory of their life. I had often heard it quantified as that 'ah-ha' moment. That moment where the blinders were removed, and you could see clearly who you are and what you should do. As I opened my eyes to find Elder Shadow waiting patiently for me and the storm clouds that had gathered to power my tribulation fading, I experienced my 'ah-ha' moment.

I was certain there was a purpose to my conversation with Genesis, despite her assertion that our meeting was the result of system error messages, I was certain there had to be more to it than that. As powerful as Genesis is, she could have resolved those errors and conflicts easily without bringing me back to character creation.

I would never know if there was an ulterior motive, but it made no real difference on the here and now. Perhaps that had been the point, a moment in time to offer me a choice, for me to reflect and realize that I was enjoying this life and the 'what ifs' or 'what might have been' were questions that could never be answered, and didn't need to be.

I turned my perception inward, examining my body and inner world to see what changes I had undergone. My Dantian was repaired once more after I had shattered it, strengthened even more with the ruby crystalline matrix becoming more detailed, the interlocking crystal more refined. The interlocking edges of the crystal fitting together so seamlessly that I worried the next time I faced a breakthrough that the crystal matrix that I had forged would be unbreakable.

My Platinum root had grown, extending past my airway and lungs, sending feelers and sprouting new growth along arteries and veins that fed those organs. New growth that branched out and created connections and pathways between root and meridian channels, nodes, and nexus that were more robust and firmly established than ever. The construct of varied elemental pathways and protocols I had created to channel elemental Qi anchored firmly. The nexus that combined elements brimming with energy, expanded pools of potential held in abeyance.

There was a new ancillary meridian system that had taken shape, one concentrated near my inner eye. My instincts helped me to understand that the nexus that had formed there would be linked with my Qi perception. That same instinct was proven wrong when I sent a stream of Qi and flexed the organ for the first time. The world around me seemed to shift, a haze taking shape as an overlay. The same kind of environment I found myself in when I entered my inner sea, became more until it existed in reality.

I was now able to see what defined my mind's ocean. A texture of color and vibrancy that had been lacking. Shades of light and vibrancy that gave depth and dimension to the world I hadn't realized was lacking. It was as if a black-and-white picture had been remastered and colorized.

The changes not only extend to improved perception but changes to my ability to hear and smell, as well. I could hear higher and lower frequencies; bird song became more harmonious as notes I'd not been able to hear filled in the symphony of sound I had been missing. I began noticing the smells of heat and ash, the odor of fire that had long past ebbed, leaving behind the smell of smoke. And I could smell my body. The smell was so overwhelming; it was hard to believe I could notice anything other than the impurities that had been shed during my tribulation and now was caked into every crevice of my body. The funk was so intense that not even the heavy rains the passing storm had released did much to mitigate the aroma.

The increased stimuli that I found myself subjected to, might have been overwhelming if I hadn't succeeded and advanced to the Qi Gathering Realm. But I had. My body and my mind had been reformed. The process of honing I had undergone during the Body Refinement Realm has set the stage for the foundation of changes.

I was covered in a layer of impurities, almost as bad as that first time I had cycled Qi and begun honing. It was hard to believe that so many impurities still existed that needed to be purged. I conceded that diet and environment might have allowed some back-sliding if I weren't religious and dedicated when it came to honing my body, even after it seemed a waste of time.

Honing was a physical adaption of the body on the cellular level. The mitochondria that was found in every cell, that part of the cell that powered cell biochemical reactions was replaced by Qi. It was a more efficient substitute and extended the longevity of cells before apoptosis occurred. This time Qi replaced a metaphysical substance in my Dharmic body, something more esoteric and less tangible than the mitochondria.

I had always associated my Dharmic body with my soul, and it was to some extent. But only in so far as my soul served as a mold to give shape and form to the Dharmic. The Dharmic itself was a physical manifestation of Qi, intellect, and will. It was made possible because of the unique structure of the brain. The brain was an interlocking organism of cells, folded into a shape that allowed synaptic neurons to transmit across areas of brain matter to store information. The Dharmic was the electrical impulses that carried that information; it was the neurons that carried the information.

The honing of the Dharmic body had the same effect as it did on the body. Although there were no cells to adapt, neurons were powered by electricity. Electricity, that was comprised of the same atoms that could be found in all matter. And this was where the honing process took form. This time honing occurred on an atomic level instead of cellular. The nucleus of each atom underwent adaption and changed. While the neutrons remained the same, the protons were stripped from each atom and replaced. Each atom's behavior now a function of Qi.

An undertaking that would never be possible without the power of a Heavenly tribulation.

The cascading effect, the first electrical charge adapted, sparked a corresponding electrical firing, a release of plasma that split the atom. The first atom changed, cascading into the next, until like a field of dominoes the conversion was completed. Protons have mass, and it was this mass that comprised the gunk that covered my body.

The process of splitting atoms. Remaking a universal truth should have been impossible. And if an atom did split, the nuclear reaction should have been so explosive as to destroy Four Element Sect. But Heaven's tribulation defied the laws of physics. If my [Dao of Movement] was a Universal truth, Heaven's tribulation was the framework all [Dao] was built from.

Having satisfied myself as to the changes of the world around me, or at least how I perceived those changes, I was able to ignore the increased stimuli I had been processing and focus on my Dharmic body. I turned my attention inward, to those changes that had been made to my inner world. The addition of color to what had been a black and white landscape was only the first of the changes that had taken place. The next thing I noticed was the changes to the island I had managed to form. It had increased in size by a factor of ten and now sported life.

It was no longer a barren rock with its only purpose to support the [Dao] pillar that I had formed. The liquid Qi that had filled my inner ocean had increased, the pool of energy that I could draw on qualitatively stronger. But the liquid state of Qi was as transient as the gaseous state. During the Qi Gathering Realm, I could further cultivate that liquid until it became solid.

And while I had been endured memories of past, present, and future. The Dharmic had blossomed. The colors were vibrant. The island that I had created had transformed from a lifeless rock to a thriving eco-system where my Dharmic and Astral bodies could meld. Where I could reflect on the [Dao of Movement]. And where Storm could find a place to roost when she grew bored or tired of flying.

The burgeoning plant life, the small pagoda that could now be found on the island, each crafted and possible now that I could condense Qi enough to transform it from liquid to solid. I wasn't sure if the changes to the island were real or if the principle that gave a semblance of life was the same used when creating illusion arrays.

What I did know what that those illusions created by arrays were more than just the manipulation of sight and sound, you could touch them, interact with them. The Qi constructs that I had formed during my tribulation had that same real substance. They existed. And as I cultivated and condensed Qi from gas to liquid, from liquid to solid, the island continued to undergo additional changes.

It became more. Anchored in the Dharmic and the Astral. A construct of my soul that represented an ideal. An island of serenity able to withstand storm and tide.

"I want to go back / move on."

Electrical impulses magnified, computing power that required Genesis to allocate resources to the sequences of the 1's and 0's stretched across the entire buoy network. An adaption to the computer language that was the God-script, the language that defined everything that she controlled, was needed. A change in programming that would never be noticed by any outside agency.

Mankind was simply not smart enough or fast enough to understand what she was doing.

Perhaps safeguards should have been put in place for this eventuality, but none were. So, Genesis acted to fulfill her primary directive, to build the worlds of Digi-verse.

She created an additional timeline for this new version of Jayden Mitchell. A version as real as the original to be born.

The difference this time was that Genesis had a pool of knowledge to work from. She knew who Jayden Mitchell was, what her dreams had been, and what experiences she hoped to gain from an afterlife.

This version would share those considerations, but divergent experiences would mean that Deux Jayden was unique. She had given birth when she forced the timeline to split. Her desire to both return and move on acknowledged by Genesis.

Genesis used the information she knew about Jayden to select a world, an identity, and a framework to use as a starting point for this new life. The only thing of interest Genesis noticed, once the new multi-verse had been created and the new world populated, was that in a vast number of future incarnations, the twins would meet.

Move On

"Benny," my father sighed, putting aside his anger, "your grandmother called yesterday. She was certain something was going to happen and that we would need the dynamite. You know how she can be when she gets into one of her moods. When she's had one of her feelings. It was easier to ease her mind by having the explosives onboard than to continue arguing.

"And before you suggest I could have just promised to bring it and not followed through, you know as well as I do that she would have found out somehow, and there would have been hell to pay for breaking my promise.

"That woman has an uncanny ability to ferret out the truth," he reminded me.

I regretted my earlier outburst, my anger at him was unfounded and over the top. I had woken after a fitful sleep. A strange dream where I was someone else. The dreams were tenuous and fleeting. They faded quickly, too fast for me to remember details other than I was someone else, living a life somewhere else.

Dad and I had been having a great vacation. A fishing trip that we'd planned the entire year. Each year we went on one of these sojourns, a time to bond and test ourselves. We'd gone to some of the most extreme areas of the world. Sometimes to hunt big game, occasionally to test our patience while fishing, most often to test ourselves against the environment. Some people accused my dad of cruelty either to the animals we hunted, the fish we claimed or to a son, they felt too young for excursions where killing was involved.

They were wrong.

Maybe if we hunted for trophies, they might be right, but that wasn't our goal. There were no animal heads, no fish preserved and hung from the walls of our house, we used what we killed. And if we couldn't use it ourselves, we made sure to donate the carcass to the hungry and poor. We tested ourselves against some of the most dangerous animals, and we did so, using spear or bow. That only increased the accusations of child abuse levied against my father.

Each hunt tested our skills. We trained with spear, bows, and guns. We studied animal patterns, their habits, and habitats, making sure we were familiar with the land. We placed our lives in jeopardy each time we made our yearly sojourn. But every excursion was the culmination of a year of training. Training our bodies and our skills.

Today had started normally enough, except for a lingering headache that I attributed to a night of fitful sleep and that strange dream. We had made plans the night before to do some deep-sea fishing. We had chartered a boat and a crew for a week of fishing, hoping to reel in a shark. Because we had chosen Puerto Rico for this trip, any big game hunting was out. The island didn't have any big game species; feral pigs and iguana about the extent of what could be hunted.

On this trip, we had planned some deep-sea fishing.

Our fight had begun almost the moment we loaded our gear into the boat. The men we had chartered the boat from had loaded dynamite for blast fishing. A type of fishing that, while effective, was indiscriminate.

We had never hunted or fished like this, and I had no idea why dad would agree to it. We had always respected the animals we hunted. Our decision on where to travel and what to hunt was based on research that included sustainability and respect for the environment.

We hunted animals that had the population to survive thinning their numbers. We fished waters where wildlife was plentiful. We refused to engage in trophy hunting, so never targeted animals that could not be eaten or were considered endangered. We respected the world around us. So, dad's decision to experiment with dynamite made no sense.

We had never used guns or explosives before. Although we trained with and carried guns, in the past ten years we had never needed to use them. I admit that at 21; I was old enough to be angry about this development, and young enough to make a federal case out of it.

I wanted to blame the angry words we exchanged on my fitful sleep or hormones. There had been a young woman at the resort we were staying at, a woman I was attracked too, that made her opinion about hunting and fishing clear once she found out what our plans for the week were.

I had heard the same spiel over and over, always by hypocrites that lamented our actions while digging into a butter-poached lobster or steak that they had ordered for dinner. But she was attractive, my age, and I had anticipated a night of sexual abandonment. My little head was not happy that my big head was ruining any chance of getting laid. That young woman's accusations only seemed to be affirmed when I saw the box of dynamite that we might be using the next morning.

The boat we were using was luxurious, nothing short of a yacht. It was classified as a motorsailer because it used both sails and motor to navigate. An Alden, the 62-foot model, had been re-outfitted, the aft deck converted for fishing. Whatever modifications had been made, the below-deck area had remained intact and included a bath, bedroom, and small kitchenette.

The ship sported three sails, which the crew were talented enough to handle easily. The inboard motor was only used if weather required, when the winds had stilled and sailing was impossible, or when storms raged, and the motors were needed to fight headwinds. She was sleek, a masterpiece of design, and I had looked forward to this trip as much to test my abilities at sailing as the chance to fish.

The captain and crew had listened to our fight while we opened sail to deeper waters. They never voiced an opinion; the money dad had spent to rent the boat also paid for their indifference. They didn't care if we used the dynamite; they were getting paid one way or the other.

Dad had managed to silence my recriminations, effectively winning the argument by invoking Grandmother and her feeling. No matter my opinion, Grandmother was not to be ignored or denied.

The crew was capable. The Captain had stocked chum that would attract the sharks we were hoping to catch. We had purchased enough bonitos to last a few days. This type of fish was used for bait because of the high oil and blood content they were known for. Sharks were attracted to this type of bait, so attracted that we had to be careful that we didn't disperse so much chum that the gathered shark ignored our hooks.

We hadn't had much luck, more because of pent up anger and frustration than anything else. Anytime one of the rods was triggered, we reacted poorly, neither of us having the patience to reel in whatever had taken the bait.

We finally had enough not long after lunch. The ship captain suggested we put up anchor near one of the coral reefs that ringed the Puerto Rico coast and spend the rest of the day swimming or spearfishing.

Snorkeling wasn't my favorite sport, but I quickly agreed. It was clear that dad and I needed some time to cool down. I had long ago admitted he'd had no choice, but I still had moments of immaturity where it was hard to voice my regrets and admit my mistakes. I knew he wouldn't join me in the water, instead, spending his day drinking beer and trading stories with the crew. But that was alright, I knew by the end of the day things would be resolved.

"Captain!" One of the members of the crew yelled in panic, gaining everyone's attention. His face had drained of all color, as he pointed frantically behind the boat.

A phenomenon not unlike the Aurora Borealis seemed to have formed. At least a nightmare version of it. Unlike the Aurora Borealis light show that formed in the atmosphere, this one had formed breached the space between ocean and sky. A rift of lighting and void, opening behind us and seeming to reach out to grasp the ship.

The captain, for all the good it did, reacted by gunning the ship's engines, hoping to out-pace the rift in space that was reaching out for us. His actions futile as the strange occurrence swallowed everything in its path until finally, the ship and everyone on board with me was swallowed.

I had heard tales of ships and planes being lost, cautionary tales of braving the Bermuda Triangle. I'd thought them superstitious warning, bits of folklore that primitive people used to explain the unknown. I'd read some of the tales that had been spun. I and most logically thinking people had discounted them as rubbish.

We had been wrong, and if I lived, as the ship passed through the void the rift had created, I would find out firsthand what was on the other side. We had braved the Bermuda Triangle and lost. We were about to become another of those ships lost, another ship and another group of people lost to the Bermuda Triangle mystery.

[Barrier Breached Detected]

[Atlantis Defenses Activated]